Processes for the durable press treatment of textile fabrics were first introduced in the 1960's and have achieved widespread use since that time. These durable press treatment processes typically involve treating the fibers of the textile fabrics with crosslinking agents. Early durable press processes used formaldehyde as a crosslinking agent which, although effective, was highly odorous and undesirable to the consumer. Formaldehyde was replaced by reactive resins such as dimethylol urea (DMU), dimethylol ethylene urea (DMEU), and by modified ethylene urea resins, such as dimethylol dihydroxy ethylene urea (DMDHEU).
While these crosslinking agents are capable of providing a fabric with good wrinkle resistance and crease recovery properties, it has been found that the desired increases in the durable press performance through the use of crosslinking agents are accompanied by undesirable losses in other important fabric properties, such as tensile strength, tear strength, abrasion resistance and fabric hand.
Thus, there has been considerable effort to develop durable press systems which provide a high durable press rating to fabric but not at the expense of the hand, tensile strength, tear strength, and abrasion resistance. Various specialized resin systems, catalysts and buffers have been developed, and a variety of treatment bath additives have been proposed as hand builders, softeners, wetting agents, and formaldehyde scavengers. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 3,926,550 to Harris et al. teaches using tung oil to increase the abrasion resistance of cotton fabric. U.S. Pat. No. 3,666,400 to Lofton et al. discloses a durable press process which combines a durable polymer, such as a polyacrylate polymer, with a temporary polymer and DMDHEU to provide size to the fabric and to increase the abrasion resistance. U.S. Pat. No. 3,731,411 to Barber et al. teaches a copolymer of guanamine and an acrylic such as acrylonitrile, an addition type polymer such as butyl acrylate, and a glyoxal resin which impart durable press properties to cellulosic fabric and which attempt to diminish the loss of strength and abrasion resistance associated with the durable press process.
Despite the solutions proposed by the aforementioned patents and other approaches described in the published literature, there still exists a need for improvements in durable press properties of the fabric while minimizing the negative effects resulting from durable press treatment. Moreover, with the current market demand for natural looking, comfortable 100% cotton wrinkle-resistant garments, there exists a need for an effective durable press treatment process suitable for processing cotton garments in a garment durable press process.